Sometimes it’s hard to remember the details of what I did last week, or even today. If it’s a question of work, I can review my calendar, the e-mails I sent, or see what I checked off my checklist.
But the things that seem important and keep popping up in my head are shreds of conversations the details of which I can’t always remember. Who said that to me? And where? Was it in the hallway, the ladies room, the cafeteria, walking into the building, waiting to go through the security line? Was it someone I see a lot? A stranger at a food truck?
My new project is to do a better job of holding on to these brief but significant interactions.
One day, as I approached the cafeteria with a colleague, I asked if he went to his vacation home at this time of year. He said, “No. I rented it for the summer, and a new tenant is coming in for the winter. I had to remortgage it to pay for my mother’s care. She had Alzheimer’s.”
The woman in the office across the hall mentioned the supermoon and eclipse: “At first I thought it would be something huge and orange. We were going to make an event, take a blanket and a thermos to the beach and watch it from there. But after reading about it online, we scaled back our expectations about huge and orange and were happy watching from the front yard.”
Coming into the building with my lunch, I met another woman coming out. We hadn’t seen each other for weeks and stopped to chat. I admired her earrings. She said they were from the Rhode Island School of Design and told me her son just started grad school there. We talked about the wonderful craft sales RISD has, and I said I especially like the one where they block off several streets sometime around Mother’s Day.
Going home on the train, I sat next to a co-worker who had been strung out with anxiety about her only child, six months old, who had a fierce case of croup that got her hospitalized for a whole weekend. My colleague thought the baby was starting to pull out of it. As she talked about how cheerful the little girl is and how much she loves to carry her in the baby carrier next to her chest, the subway car seemed to fill with love and lift toward the heavens.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
I like this undertaking! These little snippets of everyday talk and concerns are so full of life and drama.
And maybe if I am more intentional, I will not always be saying to my husband, “Now, who was a talking to about this — just the other day?”
So glad you’re doing this. I feel the same way: these little snatches of conversation are so important. They’re the stuff of human life. Loved how you ended this too–love the sense of the subway car filling with love.
I think it is going to take practice, but I am definitely trying to do a better job of holding on to the brief conversations.